Dust jacket back and front

New York-born photographer Ken Heyman presents his photographic encounter with four year-old Willie, one of the many children who were quite happily sent out to play on the streets of New York in the early 1960s. Heyman shows us the child’s universe of the Lower East Side, or rather one street block between two avenues. Heyman recorded Willie’s street life for a period of just six days. Despite the child’s obvious recognition of the photographer, Heyman states that none of the photographs were staged or posed. It is exactly this combination of juvenile self-awareness and absolute inattention or self-absorption which makes the images so charming.

EDWARD J. STEICHEN’s quote on the reverse of the dust jacket neatly sums it up: “This is a dandy book. It is a factual document – a book of magic and revelation. It brings a boy and a city street to life with the vivid reality Mark Twain gave to Tom Sawyer and the Mississippi country.”

Ken Heyman’s website: www.kenheyman.com

Text by Michael Mason

Printed in gravure in Switzerland and

published by The Ridge Press, Inc., New York 1963

Hard cover with dust jacket

18.5 x 26.5cm

88 pages

Cover back and front